Golf in the 21st century retains a reputation for misogyny, with several Open
Championship courses excluding women members, but a rarely seen painting
shows that players were more enlightened in 15th-century China.

While the courses at Troon and Royal St George’s refuse to allow women to play
unaccompanied by men, the greens at the Forbidden City in Beijing were open
to women during the Ming Dynasty.

A 500-year-old scroll showing three women and their caddies goes on display
today at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London after a Chinese museum
agreed to lend it overseas for the first time.